Capitalist Combinations on War
"Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik" (Edgar Jaffé) (vol. 41, issue 1), 1915, September. pp. 296-7. "Employers' Organizations NB on War."

..."Consequently, there is in mind" (according to the view of employers' organizations) "the development or growth of a specifically German type; it is for this, they say, that war is being waged. Such a view, essentially speaking, corresponds perfectly well with the interests of entrepreneurs. They have understood that for entrepreneurs there lies a certain danger in hearing after the war the declaration: *vestra res agitur* (the matter concerns you), the question is about your skin and your interests! War is being waged in order to decide who is to play the leading role on the world market!" ("Deutsche Arbeitgeberzeitung," 7. II. 1915). Then evidently all socio-political tendencies, all strivings to cover military expenditures also at the expense of
entrepreneurial profit would meet with complete sympathy. If, however, the war is being waged for the interests of culture, if what is being defended is not the interests of profit but a type of culture, then all of society is obliged to bear the burdens of war and no special class can be singled out to whose interests the war would directly contribute.

The influence of the war, insofar as it extends to the internal-political situation of the country, the employers consider predominantly advantageous. Particularly prominent is the advantageousness of its influence on the socialist party. Here "fate the educator" is lauded. During the war there arose a unity of the people, and the most splendid socialist theories have had the ground knocked out from under them. (Ibid., 2. VIII. 1915.) Only in this war has the people truly become a people (in the expression of Treitschke)—and in this alone already lies the justification for the war. ...War for centuries to come will still be the only form of resolving conflicts between states, and this form is welcomed because war has retarded development in the direction of democracy: "We have reached the limit of enfeeblement, the boundaries of diminishment and effeminacy. But from the end, from submersion in this abyss, we were saved by fate—fate, which, it seems, has predetermined a special goal for our German people." (Ibid., 16. VIII. 1914.) "Thus the meaning of war in general is persistently sought in the regeneration of the soul; the economic and political significance of the war is belittled, serious political and economic consequences are rejected."

..."It is rightly pointed out that further measures of the German government were directed at the regulation of consumption, whereas the aim of socialism is the socialization of the means of production. (Ibid., 28. II. 1915.) All these measures must therefore disappear again with the onset of peace. All these views correspond to the interests of entrepreneurs, and there is, perhaps, nothing more indicative of the antagonism of class interests between entrepreneurs and workers than the fact that war in the ideology of these two classes has been reflected in a completely opposite manner. But this opposition has different shades. Socialists of opportunistic, revisionist orientation see in war an economic war. They hold the view that war is imperialist, they even defend the right of each nation to imperialism, draw from this the conclusion about the community of interests between entrepreneurs and workers of one nation, and ought consistently to find themselves on the path toward transformation into a radical bourgeois party of reform. Meanwhile, on the contrary, the radical direction of the socialist workers' movement, although it considers the war (at least with qualifications) imperialist, precisely denies this development—finds it necessary for the intensification of class struggle as a result of war and demands the emphasis of the proletarian viewpoint already during the war. Entrepreneurs, however, as we see, deny the imperialist character of the war. They do not wish to be told: *Tua res agitur* (the matter concerns you). They reject the affirmative, asserting view of socialist-revisionists on imperialist war to the same degree as the critical relation to it of radical socialism, and they seek salvation in the "cultural significance" of the war, in an assertion that does not place upon any definite class responsibility for the war and does not attribute to any one of the classes the receipt of special benefits from the war. Thus we see a peculiar picture: while governments everywhere stand on the point of view of imperialist theory, or, at any rate" (how nice!!), "note in the opponent the decisive significance of economic interest, the chief representatives of economic interests advance exclusively
how well put!
the general-cultural significance of the war. The result of this is that they come into contact with views which also exist in the camp of radical socialism; they regard war in the economic relation only as an intermediate phase; all phenomena during the war, all state measures are called forth by the given situation and undoubtedly must disappear again together with the war. Also, the views of entrepreneurs on war, however much it might seem that they have some central idea, must therefore be regarded exclusively as (class) ideology" (p. 295-297). (End of article.)

Note, p. 293-4:
"Particularly instructive is the programmatic article in the 'Deutsche Arbeitgeberzeitung' (of 15. VIII, 1915), in which the tendencies toward a new (democratic) orientation in internal policy are rejected in the most decisive manner...

...First of all, social-democracy must 'reeducate itself' even further: it will have to 'above all also demonstrate after the war whether that process of regeneration to which it refers has truly entered into its flesh and blood. Only in the case that this fact over a more or less extended period is fully proved can one speak with proper caution about whether some of these changes are possible in the internal policy of Germany'. ...In any case, for now there are still no preconditions for future internal policy (in the spirit of the left parties)... on the contrary, 'the stern school of war gives us the strongest arguments that can possibly be advanced against further democratization of our state structure'..." (p. 294).

